Clash Royale, the new mobile game from the developer of Clash of Clans, has become something of an obsession for some members of the Polygon office, as well as millions of other players all around the world. It's also received plenty of criticism for its microtransaction-centric structure that rewards players who are willing to dump cash into the game.
It's no surprise, then, that one of the game's most successful (and popular) players has poured a ton of money into it.
Writing in a Reddit AMA earlier this week, Clash Royale player Chief Pat revealed that he's spent a total of $30,000 on developer Supercell's games — $18,000 on Clash of Clans, which he's been playing for years, and a whopping $12,000 on Clash Royale, despite it just having come out at the start of 2016.
"I've never regretted it, because YouTube is my job," Chief Pat wrote. "It's a business expense, and I gotta show off all the coolest shit for my subscribers, ya digg?"
Chief Pat runs a popular YouTube channel with over 1.7 million subscribers. The vast majority of the channel's videos are devoted to Clash of Clans and Clash Royale. You can see a video where he takes first place on the game's leaderboards above.
While spending a ton of money is helpful, if not necessary, to progress to the level Chief Pat has, he also emphasized the strategy required to stay on top in the game. Throughout the AMA, Pat provided many tips for improving your play. He also said he believes Supercell will be changing the progression systems in the game.
"Without a doubt there has to be changes to the current F2P (free-to-play) progression, and I'm positive Supercell knows that," Pat wrote.
"I think they've already made the mistake of making the game so expensive and take so long to progress so soon after launch. ... I'd look for improvement in this area in the next update and also look for them to start releasing features to keep F2P players engaged besides just regular trophy grinding which will inevitably burn you out when facing the almighty credit card users."
Pat also accused some other top-ranked players of win-trading — that is, alternating wins and losses with each other — in order to keep their top spots. With the way progression is set up in Clash Royale, the leaderboards are hotly contested and players shift spots often. Chief Pat was ranked number one at the time of the AMA, but is now number 19 globally as of the time of publication.
Clash Royale is currently the number one top-grossing app on iOS and the number three top-grossing app on Android. It reportedly makes as much as $1.5 million a day. You can check out Chief Pat's full, very interesting AMA on Reddit, and watch the video below for a Polygon overview of Clash Royale. We'll just be over here in the corner staring at our treasure chest unlock timers.
